Derelicts: An Account of Ships Lost at Sea in General Commercial Traffic: And a Brief History of Blockade Runners Stranded Along the North Carolina Coast, 1861-1865Sprunt, James
History
Derelicts: An Account of Ships Lost at Sea in General Commercial Traffic: And a Brief History of Blockade Runners Stranded Along the North Carolina Coast, 1861-1865
Sprunt, James
Blockade; Derelicts; North Carolina -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
"'Well, of course I am not responsible now, but I am an older sailor
than you, Captain Stone, and I tell you if you want to clear Hatteras,
another two points east will do no harm. Do but look at my chart; I
left it open on the cabin table. And the coffee will be ready now,' and
Captain Wilson led the way from the poop to the cabin, followed by the
commander.
"There was a passage about five yards long leading from the deck to the
cabin, a door at either end. The captain stopped at the first door,
closing it, and picking from behind it an iron belaying pin which he
had placed there. The younger man went forward to the cabin where the
chart lay upon the table.
"'Stone!' The lieutenant turned at the sudden peremptory exclamation of
his name. His arm upraised, the heavy iron bolt in his hand, in low,
but hard, eager, quick words, 'My ship shall never go to Philadelphia!'
said the captain. He did not strike. It was unnecessary. Montgomery had
thrust the gag in the young lieutenant's mouth; he was bound hand and
foot, bundled into a berth, and the door locked. Three out of fifteen
were thus disposed of. There was still the watch on deck and the watch
below.
"The construction of the _Emily St. Pierre_ was of a kind not unusual,
but still not very common. The quarters of the crew were not in the
forecastle, but in a roundhouse amidships. The name does not describe
its shape. It was an oblong house on deck with windows and one door.
From the poop, or upper deck, at the stern, over the cabins and
staterooms and the passage before mentioned, there was a companion
stair on the port side leading to the deck at the waist; whilst a
similar companionway at the stern led down to the level of the deck,
which could also be approached direct from the cabins through the
passage. In this space, behind the poop, was the wheel, slightly
raised, for the steersman to see clear of the poop; and there was
a hatchway leading to the lazaret hold, a small supplementary hold
usually devoted to stores, extra gear, coils of spare rope, and so on.
Nothing that might be done on this part of the deck could be seen,
therefore, from the waist of the ship; vice versa, except by the
steersman, who was elevated by a step or two above the level.
"Coming on this part of the deck from the cabin, Captain Wilson called
to the three men who were about, and pointing to a heavy coil of rope
in the lazaret, ordered them to get it up at once--Lieutenant Stone's
orders. They jumped down without demur, suspecting nothing, as soon
as the captain shoved the hatch aside. They were no sooner in than
he quickly replaced and fastened the hatch. The three were securely
trapped in full view of the helmsman, whose sailor's instinct kept him
in his place at the wheel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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